The L.A. Times music blog

Natalie Cole at the Bowl: 'Healthy and whole and 100%'

September 10, 2009 | 6:56
am

You got the feeling Wednesday night that Natalie Cole couldn’t have been happier to be pulling into the Hollywood Bowl nearly two months late for her gig.

“I never thought I’d be standing here healthy, whole and 100% again,” the 59-year-old singer told the crowd, which cheered her return to the concert stage following a kidney transplant in May that prompted the postponement of her scheduled July 15 concert.

Her recovery -- guest gospel singer Kurt Carr called her “a walking miracle” when his 10-member choir joined her near the show’s end -- made for a warmly emotional backdrop to a performance dominated by music drawn from the Great American Songbook. She tapped that trove anew last fall in “Still Unforgettable,” the successor to her multiple-Grammy-winning 1991 collection, “Unforgettable With Love.”

A smart arrangement of “The Man That Got Away” downshifted from a blazing swing that let her show off her precise articulation to a half-tempo section in which she could more gently caress the song’s melodic curves, then back to full speed and down once more.

She took equally great care with Nan Schwartz’s Grammy-winning arrangement that recast “Here’s That Rainy Day,” distinguishing it from the signature Stan Kenton version. One of the key strengths of her outings in this field is her avoidance of the vocal acrobatics that mar so many pop and R&B singers’ attempts to sing jazz.

“Walkin’ My Baby Back Home” gave her another chance to duet posthumously with her father, whose elegantly silky voice came through the Bowl’s P.A. system in perfect sync with her own. She clearly inherited Nat King Cole’s effortlessness as a singer, casually remaining behind the beat in most of the ballads. Nat became a video as well as an audio presence on the screens flanking the stage when Natalie got around to “Unforgettable,” looking unforgettably cute in vintage photos of her when she had recently lost her two front teeth.

Cole followed the standards with a four-song R&B set that pulled in her ‘70s and ‘80s pop numbers “This Will Be,” “Inseparable,” “Mr. Melody” and the bluesy “I’m Catching Hell.”

“This Will Be” positively crackled from her joyfulness, aided by lockstep harmonies from her two backup singers on that effervescent chorus that spews its piled-up expressions of love breathlessly. Indeed, she appeared to be huffing a bit at the end, understandable in what was her first concert since the kidney transplant. But she got her second wind in a final stretch in which she made good on a vow to take the 9,737-strong crowd to church with her.

“Be Blessed” and “He’s Done Enough” gained firepower from Carr’s group, and she offered a string of thank-yous for her own blessings, ultimately kicking up her heels in some footwork straight from the pulpit when the orchestra kicked into a double-time coda on “He’s Done Enough."

Would that all divas might get in touch with their humility, and live to sing about it, the way Natalie Cole has.